(1) Field of the Invention
This disclosure is directed to a method of automatically connecting a meeting room telephone to a conference call.
(2) Description of Related Art Including Information Submitted under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
Rokosz et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. 20060168529) describes integrated management of in-person and virtual meeting attendance. According to the abstract, Rokosz et al. is directed to a “method, system and apparatus for the integrated management of in-person and e-meeting attendance . . . [and a] system for the consolidated management of an attendance list for a hybrid meeting can include a collaborative bridge configured for coupling both to an in-person meeting and an e-meeting, a data store of integrated attendance, and attendance integration logic . . . [and] the in-person meeting can include a sensor coupled to the collaborative bridge and configured to detect a presence of tags affixed to participants to the in-person meeting to manage the attendance information for the in-person meeting . . . [and as] an example, the sensor and tags can be a radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor and corresponding RFID tags, a badge reader and corresponding badges, or at least one wireless access point and corresponding wireless transmitters.”
Iyer et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. 20070081651) discloses a “telecommunications system [that] includes a plurality of user devices; a presence and availability service configured to monitor presence states of the plurality of user devices; a teleconferencing service configured to permit a scheduling of conferences among the plurality of users; wherein said teleconferencing service is configured to invoke a scheduled teleconference responsive to presence states of the plurality of user devices” (see the Iyer et al. abstract).